Is it possible to do this on the Mac?

S

Sgt_Strider

Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2003
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My desk is about two meters from my bed. Before I go to bed, I open a bunch of windows and a email client on my dual monitor set up. This way the minute I wake up, I can immediately go to my desk, move the mouse to activate the screen and then have all of the information available to me.

Being the lazy guy that I am (especially in the morning), is there a way I can get the screens to turn on while still lying in bed? My vision is good enough where I can see the text while I'm about two meters away. I rather not have both LCDs turned on for the entire night as it waste a lot of electricity. I rather let the screens turn off after a period of inactivity and then somehow trigger the LCDs to turn on while in bed. Any suggestions on how to do this?
 
I have done a project several times that might work for you. Take apart a USB keyboard. Watch some videos on youtube about how keyboards work. Find the combination on the little circuit inside that signals the "shift" key. Then make a little push button (momentary switch) inside a plastic project box. Connect it to your computer. When you kit the button on the box, the computer will think that the shift button was just hit on a normal USB keyboard, which will turn off screen saver, but shift doesn't actually do anything by itself so nothing gets affected on the computer.

I have done this for other applications like foot triggers for Skype or something. Doesn't require any special software and works on everything.
 
I would say, try it with http://www.koingosw.com/products/alarmclockpro/ or some other Software that can turn your mac into an "Alram Clock"
It is important to know, that this kind of Software (afaik Software needing kernel level driver help) is not allowed in the Appstore, so you have to find / buy it somewhere else.
As you described, you woud set an Alarm to wake you in the morning with your favorite Music Library or some podcast or something to any given time. So sending your mac to sleep in the evening, it will wake and play the music you setup while also starting / resuming your email / other programs.
Only important thing is to disable the login/resume password.
As your mac is going to sleep so will your displays do, as long as they are connected per digital video (dp, hdmi). As soon as your mac wakes, so will your monitor.
 
Mini Bluetooth keyboard will do the trick and you'd be able to control the machine. I use them as remotes and it works well.
 
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